New York Magazine – July 22, 2019

70 new york | july 22–august 4, 2019

season two of HBO’s Big Little Lies tells two stories, one unfolding onscreen,
the other offscreen. One is about female friendship, complicity, and conspiracy
in a world dominated by men. The other is a behind-the-scenes melodrama about the
entertainment machine that cranks out high-end dramas like the show you’re watching;
its existence was revealed by an IndieWire story in which unnamed sources close to the
show’s producers accused two of the series’ executive producers, showrunner David E.
Kelley and first-season director Jean-Marc Vallée, of redoing the work of Andrea Arnold
(F i s h Ta n k, American Honey), a filmmaker they’d hired to helm all of season two.
The onscreen and offscreen stories merge in the mere fact of a sec-
ond season’s existence. Big Little Lies season two is a genial yet blatant
attempt to turn a popular, award-winning stand-alone, adapted from
Liane Moriarty’s same-titled novel, into an ongoing TV series, even
though the story felt complete at the end of season one. Adapted for
television by Kelley (The Practice) and Vallée (Dallas Buyers Club,
Sharp Objects), season one told the fragmented, elliptical story of a

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group of (mostly) rich women in Monterey,

California, who come together to end an

abusive man’s life. The victim, Perry Wright

(Alexander Skarsgård), beat his wife,

Celeste (Nicole Kidman), and had previ-

ously raped the youngest member of the

group, Jane Chapman (Shailene Woodley),

impregnating her with a son, Ziggy (Iain

Armitage). The group’s lone African-

American character, Bonnie Carlson (Zoë

Kravitz), pushes Perry down a flight of stairs

during an altercation at an elementary-

school costume party, and the entire group,

including Reese Witherspoon’s Madeline

Martha Mackenzie and Laura Dern’s

Renata Klein, conspire to cover up the

crime by describing it as an accident.

Season two brings in two new major

characters, both mothers, to stir up what

has become a story about a group of guilty

criminals trying to stay out of prison. Bon-

nie’s abusive mom, Elizabeth (Crystal Fox),

is a psychic who has visions of her guilt-

ridden daughter immersed in water. Meryl

Streep’s Mary Louise Wright, mother of PHOTOGRAPH: JENNIFER CLASEN/HBO

The CULTURE PAGES

CRITICS

Matt Zoller Seitz on Big Little Lies ... David Edelstein on The Nightingale and For Sama.

BIG LITTLE LIES

HBO.

Crimes of the Art

There was messy drama on both

sides of the camera on Big Little Lies

this season. But Meryl was great.

TV / MATT ZOLLER SEITZ

From left, Shailene

Woodley, Zoë Kravitz,

Reese Witherspoon,

Nicole Kidman,

and Laura Dern.